Choice - 9

Choice - 9

I returned to my room, even though it was tempting to spend the rest of the night in the library, hoping to find something, but after some consideration, I decided against it. I was afraid of the captain who might check that I had gone where I was supposed to be.

I just stopped to steal a book from the library to see if I could use that to my advantage.

The temptation to go and poke around the room Toross and Falael were currently occupying was even greater. They were still sleeping with the door open, drunk, but I didn't want to risk it. Even with my limited Vitality, the impact of the alcohol had long disappeared, and I didn't want to take the risk of one of them waking up to find me sneaking around.

My harmless aura was my single greatest asset, and I didn't want to risk it for the moment. I wasn't afraid of them getting rid of me after all the trouble they had gone to but that didn't mean I was willing to show myself.

Right now, they were confident that a blast of mental pressure was all they needed to gain my serious cooperation, and the longer I could make them believe it was useful, the looser their control would be around me.The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

I closed the door once I returned to my room, and put the book on my bedside table, into the drawer, outside of the view of someone, but actually hidden. No need to make it look like I was actually trying to keep it hidden.

Then, the next question ... my stats. According to what soldiers had said, awakening stat points were supposed to be challenging affairs, often requiring years of dedicated effort. And, since none of the other soldiers looked inclined to disagree, I was willing to take that comment at face value.

Yet, I was able to awaken several in one evening. There were two possibilities. One, it might be a feature of my class, Hero. It was not impossible, and fit with other details which they had slipped. Many other classes were gaining somewhere between one to three points with each level. Even assuming there were others they didn't mention that gained more, I guessed that ten was already somewhere near the peak, if not the peak.

Still, that stat disparity, along with the near-exponential growth the experience requirements displayed, gave me a solid idea of why they had gone through all that trouble to summon others from another world and brainwash them rather than just raising a few of their own. Maybe there were other reasons as well, but the potential it represented was a good start.

The second case was about the life I had lived. The guard had mentioned years of training required to familiarize oneself with the stat. And, it was hard to argue that my life had more than qualified for that, forcing me to explore my limits again and again as I fought to survive, from the streets to the top.

Maybe it was what they meant by familiarization, or maybe it was just a combination of two factors.

Either way, it still represented the greatest opportunity I faced.

I wanted to awaken as many stats as I could find. And, I had two targets for that, Intelligence, and Charisma. For Intelligence, I tried to read the indecipherable book again and again, did hundreds of mental calculations, and even tried to recite some of the stories I had memorized.

The mention of the soldier about only nobles being allowed to attain Charisma reminded me of that.

Whether that restriction was actually applied efficiently and fairly was a very different question. Even without knowing anything about the world, I would be willing to bet that a numerable amount of organizations were actually flaunting that role. I could even go further and guess that those included not only some freelance conmen but also some underground enterprises, rich merchants, and possibly many other 'upstanding' citizens secretly or not-so-secretly generating such forces.

Expecting people to ignore the potential for power and authority was optimistic at best.

The third implication came from their sudden panic at the mention of charisma to me. Combined with the dismissive way he mentioned when relaxed, my best guess was that they were ordered never to mention Charisma to me understandable as they were clearly determined to brainwash me as we traveled toward our destination.

I didn't need the potential boost from that elusive Intelligence to deduct such brainwashing would work much better if I stayed unaware of the effect.

The initial mishap that happened during the summoning already made that part more difficult than necessary, when they used the impact of the Charisma to make me level up, but it was clearly an unexpected crisis they had to deal with due to my own volunteering.

Even then, Falael clearly had no concerns about using Charisma on me, expecting it to work perfectly. Maybe he would have been right without the mysterious assistance of Resilience, but life didn't work based on hypothetical cases.

Unfortunately, the theoretical breakdown of Charisma didn't bring me any closer to attaining it. Even as I spent hours trying to awaken it, I failed. And I tried a lot, thinking about the notable events of my life, giving imaginary orders, whispering orders despite the risk of being heard even striking some charismatic poses despite being aware of how ridiculous they looked but every single one of them came blank.

Maybe it required some kind of medium to interact. Resilience awakened when I was trying to resist death itself, and while I awakened Strength and Agility relatively easily, Strength was still triggered by push-ups, while Agility required some coin tricks.

Maybe Charisma required a target to be awakened as well

Finally, as I was lost in my thoughts, I heard a knock on the door.

I pulled myself out of bed and got up, ready to invite them inside.

It was time to put up another show